STEP BROTHER DEAREST
But I could see the tension in her every step, the way her hands flexed restlessly at her sides.
At the library, she finally spoke.
“He’s not dead.”
The words startled me. She said them without looking at me, her voice flat, almost mechanical.
I swallowed. “You sound sure.”
“I don’t have to be sure.” She dropped into a chair, her eyes on the empty space where Ian usually sprawled with his papers. “The stepbrother doesn’t kill clean. He leaves marks. Echoes. If Ian’s dead, we’d know. This silence?” Her gaze darkened. “It’s deliberate.”